


Purina III: We Need to Talk about Hypatia

by orphan_account



Series: Purina [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (hey it's the '80s), Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Rule 63, sedatives, smoking indoors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 23:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2169225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our heroine gets into trouble, and her aunt and uncle are worried. Murasaki is a crazy ninja, and Robertas is a crazy... whatever he is, but the love is there. No Mina in this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purina III: We Need to Talk about Hypatia

Hypatia’s back was straight. Her throat was mute. Her eyes were looking somewhere else.

She was sitting on the couch in her aunt and uncle’s living room. Her arms were at her sides, and her gaze was focused somewhere behind the landscape hung on the wall across from her.

Robertas knelt down in front of her. He was a tall man, and slim, with Hypatia’s blonde hair and high cheekbones. His face was soft with concern. “Can you tell my what happened, little one?” he asked.

She stared straight ahead like a porcelain doll. Her breathing was even; an impressive display of control. She was clearly terrified.

“Did they hurt you? After they separated you from him?” He had seen the scrapes on her hands, the scuffs on her immaculate jeans. She looked like she’d been thrown on concrete.

A tear ran down her face, but she didn’t move, not even to wipe it away. She didn’t answer his question.

Robertas sighed. He went to the bedroom and took a blanket from the closet. When he returned, he draped it over Hypatia’s shoulders and sat down beside her, wrapping her in his arms. “My poor, sweet girl.” She didn’t move.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he said quietly. “I don’t care what you did.”

He sat with his arms around her for some time. He wanted to pull her into his lap and soothe her fear and pain, but at the moment, she wasn’t even in the room with him. She was behind a pane of glass in her own mind, watching the world around her but not touching. 

Murasaki came into the room with a strong-smelling cup of tea. She was slight, almost a foot shorter than Robertas, with powerful muscles hidden under her soft dresses. She picked up Hypatia’s hand and closed her fingers around the cup.

“Drink this,” she said, trying to make eye contact. “You’ll feel better.”

Hypatia obeyed her and drank, heedless of the still scalding water. She set the cup down. Murasaki ran a hand over her hair and shared a look with Robertas. She would have liked to help them. As it was, she sighed and left the room again.

Very slowly, Hypatia’s tight posture started to slacken. Robertas noticed it first in her arms. She had been almost sick with adrenaline. Now she was showing the exhaustion that came from its depletion. He pulled her closer, and she didn’t resist, letting him wrap her in the blanket and rub her back. Slowly, he took more of her weight as she was unable to hold herself upright. She twitched as she finally gave in to sleep.

Robertas laid her down on the couch carefully, moving slowly so as not to startle her awake. He knelt down and unlaced her sneakers, slipping them off her feet.

Murasaki stood in the doorway. “Is she all right?” she asked.

“I believe so.” Robertas picked up the half-empty cup and smelled it, sniffing curiously. “I don’t recognize this tea. What’s in it?”

Murasaki shrugged. “Valium.”

He nodded, then drank the rest of the cup. He carefully scooped Hypatia up, still dressed, still wrapped in the blanket, and carried her to her bedroom. Murasaki opened the door for them, and he nodded his thanks as he laid the girl on the bed, shushing her gently when she stirred at the motion. He stroked her hair, looking down at her young face. He hoped her sleep would be far enough away from reality to give her time to recover. He feared it might send her back through her memories to somewhere worse.

He left the room quietly, leaving the door open a crack so they could hear her if she started screaming. He rubbed his tired eyes and let Murasaki melt against his side.

“Do you think she’s stopped speaking again?” he asked. “That it will last beyond today?”

Murasaki shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think the boy will keep his eye?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I don’t know that either.”

He let his head rest on top of hers, taking comfort in the smooth feeling of her hair against his cheek. “Should we take her out of school?”

“Almost certainly, but we can talk of it tomorrow. No one makes good decisions on a day like this.”

Robertas gritted his teeth. “Clearly.”

“You’re thinking of Principal Boudreaux.”

“Hypatia can’t de-escalate a conflict because she was raised in a gulag,” Robertas said, exaggerating slightly. “I would be interested to know Mr. Boudreaux’s excuse.”

He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, offering one to Murasaki. She lit hers on the end of his, pressing close to him as she inhaled. They were both worried. Robertas’s anger and Murasaki’s calm covered a deep fear for their adopted daughter. It had taken months to coax her to rejoin humanity, to begin speaking and interacting with others again. Months to teach her that she was safe, and the adults around her could be trusted. Now that she’d faced proof to the contrary, they couldn’t be sure she would come back to them again.

They had been called into Hypatia’s school that afternoon to hear that a senior named Billy Rixton had thrown a rock at her, which she then caught and threw with unfortunate accuracy into his left eye. She had then, according to the teacher who had seen it, launched herself at her assailant, and required three grown men to pull her off of him, while an ambulance was called and Billy taken to a hospital.

The one mercy was that Billy’s parents hadn’t been present in the office, instead attending to their son halfway across town. Robertas had attempted to explain Hypatia’s background to the teachers, but met with little acceptance.

It was unfortunate that Hypatia didn’t cry. No doubt it had served her in the past; preserved some of her dignity, perhaps made her a less interesting target. But people would have _understood_ that a sobbing, shaking girl was reacting to trauma, acting on instinct in fear for her life. To someone who didn’t know her, the steely calm Hypatia took on when the world was too dangerous to be present in read as indifference, the cold blood of a monster who had simply been waiting for an excuse to strike.

And she had, when informed that Billy might go blind in his left eye, said, “He was blind already.”

That had not been diplomatic.

“Thank you for taking her home,” Robertas said. Against the principal’s wishes, he had sent Hypatia home before their ‘discussion’ was over, before she could say something more to convince the principal she was a brutal deviant or he could say something more to convince her he was a threat to her safety. Murasaki had taken the car, and he had caught a bus home later.

“Don’t thank me. I would have rather left than stayed.” She took another drag of her cigarette, trying to let the smoke calm her. “She’s strong,” she said. “She’s made it this far, she won’t crumple now.”

Robertas squeezed her hand. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

“We’ll take care of her.” Murasaki wound his arm around herself like a shawl. “Just as we have been. And if anyone throws any more rocks, I’ll take their eye myself.”

Robertas laughed and hugged her closer, because he knew she meant it. “Oh god, Murasaki, I don’t want to talk to the principal about you too.”

“If no one throws rocks at my child, you won’t have to.”

He let his shoulders relax and felt some of the painful tension seep away. Whatever he had to do, he knew he wouldn’t have to work alone.


End file.
